An infusion pump infuses fluids, medication or nutrients into a patient's circulatory system. It is generally used intravenously, although subcutaneous, arterial and epidural infusions are occasionally used.
Infusion pumps can administer fluids in ways that would be impractically expensive or unreliable if performed manually by nursing staff. For example, they can administer as little as 0.1 mL per hour injections, injections every minute, injections with repeated boluses requested by the patient, up to maximum number per hour, or fluids whose volumes vary by the time of day. Because they can also produce quite high but controlled pressures, they can inject controlled amounts of fluids e.g., subcutaneously or epidurally.
Among other safety features available on some pumps, anti-free flow mechanisms and anti-free-flow devices prevent blood from draining from the patient, or infusate from freely entering the patient, when the infusion pump is being set up.
Various approaches were taken in the literature to ensure anti-free-flow in those pumps. Hence for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,261,262 discloses a peristaltic pump with housing, a pump head in the housing, and a receiving path defined along housing and pump head for receiving tubing. Nevertheless, an effective anti-free flow provided in a passive mechanical interface (MS) which integrally accommodates a portion of the flexible infusion-tube wherein a flow of infusion fluid is provided is still a long felt need.